God in Everything at the End of the Age

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be of sound
judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. Above all,
keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a
multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaint.
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one
another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever
speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever
serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so
that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to
whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.
Amen.

I have preached on this text at least three times since I have
been at Bethlehem. Once I focused on the call to prayer in verse 7.
Once I focused on the call to love and hospitality in verses 8–9.
Once I focused on spiritual gifts in verse 10. And I think there
was a fourth time when I focused on how to serve God so that God
gets the glory from verse 11.

So as I was praying about what to focus on this time, it seemed
like I should focus on something I have not before. Two things
seemed timely. One was the phrase, "The end of all things is at
hand," in verse 7. The other was a special word I think the Lord
has for us as a church at this specific juncture of our life
together—coming through hard days and entering into a time of
master planning.

So that's what I want to try to do this morning. I want to
explain what I think Peter means by "The end of all things is at
hand" (in verse 7), and then draw out a word for us that I believe
the Lord impressed on me fairly strongly yesterday.

The End of All Things Is at Hand

What did Peter mean?

Let's begin with verse 7. Peter starts the paragraph, "The end
of all things is at hand." What does he mean? Was he claiming to
know and teach that Jesus would come back in a few months or years
and end this age and establish the kingdom—so that he made a
mistake in his prediction? Or was he teaching that Jesus could come
back at any moment because everything that needs to happen before
he comes had happened—and so his coming is near in the sense
of being immanent? Or is there a third possibility?

He Wasn't Simply Mistaken

Interpreters with less confidence in the Scriptures have
sometimes concluded that the apostles simply made a mistake when
they said things like this—"the end of all things at hand."
The end is near, they said, but the end was over 2,000 years
away. So they made a mistake—the argument goes.

But for those of us who have come to trust in Scripture as God's
word and believe that God did not allow his apostles to teach
mistakes to the church, this is not so easy. And there are other
reasons it's not so easy. One is that Peter was there in Acts 1:6
when the apostles ask Jesus if now is the time for the kingdom to
be established. "Lord, is it at this time that you are restoring
the kingdom to Israel?" Peter heard Jesus say, "It is not for you
to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own
authority" (Acts 1:7). Peter had been told that it was not his
business to know when Jesus would come and establish his kingdom.
His business was to do the Master's bidding till he comes—to
spread the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of
the earth.

A Clue in the Word on Prayer

So what was Peter teaching about the end of all things in verse
7? The clue that I followed was the following word on prayer,
"Therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose
of prayer." Peter connects the nearness of the end with the need
for prayer. I think this points us back to the teaching of Jesus
who did the same thing in Luke 21:36.

I invite you to look it up with me, so we can see it in context:
"But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may
have strength to escape all these things that are about to take
place, and to stand before the Son of Man." The point of praying
for "escape" is not that Christians will be taken out of the world
and not pass through the trouble Jesus is predicting. You don't
need "strength" for that. He prays for "strength"—that they
would be strong so as not to be spiritually and morally ruined by
the end-time stresses. Two verses later in verse 34 he calls the
coming end a "trap" for those who are weighed down with dissipation
and drunkenness and the worries of life. That's what we need to
have strength to escape from—the trap of worldliness as the
end draws near.

So both Jesus and Peter connect the urgency of prayer with the
drawing near of the end of the age. Peter was there when Jesus
taught this and learned it from him. So let's stay with the context
in Luke 21 for a few minutes and see how Jesus taught Peter and the
others to think about the end of the age.

Jesus' Teaching on the End of the Age

In verse 6 of Luke 21 Jesus predicts the demolishing of the
Jerusalem temple: "not one stone will be left upon another." This
prompts the disciples to ask (in v. 7) about the signs when these
kinds of things would happen.

So Jesus mentions some things that are going to happen leading
from then to the end. Verse 9: "And when you hear of wars and
disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place
first, but the end does not follow immediately." Notice: Jesus is
careful to say that these signs—wars and
disturbances—are not immediately followed by the end. There
is an undefined space of time. He is avoiding locking himself into
a specific time frame.

In verses 10 and 11 he mentions wars again, as well as
earthquakes and famines and terrors and some kind of cataclysmic
signs in the sky or in space. Then in verse 12 he says something
important about timing. Looking back on the wars and upheavals and
famines and earthquakes, he says, "But before all these things,
they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you . . .
etc."

Notice the word, "before." So now you have another indefinite
space of time implied: First there is the persecution that Peter
and other disciples will experience (v. 12). Then there is "these
things"—"before all these things" (v. 12)—namely, the
wars and famines and earthquakes, etc. Then there is the end. And
between these there is no set amount of time.

Then Jesus adds some more signs that will happen on the way to
the end—still without getting specific about when they happen
or how they are connected. For example, verse 20: "But when you see
Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation
is at hand." Then verse 24b: "Jerusalem will be trampled under foot
by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." So
the destruction of Jerusalem is part of what is coming before the
end, and after that there will be this period of time, again of
unspecified length, that has to be fulfilled—which Jesus
calls "the times of the Gentiles."

Peter Wasn't Saying Jesus Could Return at Any Moment

Now when Peter wrote 1 Peter, Jerusalem had not been destroyed
yet. He died around AD 65 and Jerusalem was destroyed by the
Romans in about AD 70. So it's hard for me to agree with the
interpretation that says what Peter meant in 1 Peter 4:7 ("The end
of all things is at hand") was that Jesus could come back at any
moment. Jesus had said that Jerusalem would be destroyed first and
then an undefined time of the Gentiles would elapse before the end
of the age would come and he would return.

Besides the destruction of Jerusalem Jesus also said that world
evangelization would take place before the end would come. For
example, Matthew 24:14, "This gospel of the kingdom must first be
preached in all the world as a testimony to all the nations; then
the end will come" (cf. Acts 1:8).

And not only that, Jesus had told Peter what would happen in his
old age, and so he predicted that Peter would get old. In John
21:18 Jesus said, "When you grow old you will stretch out your
hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do
not wish to go." So Peter can't have believed that Jesus would
return at any minute during his middle aged years of ministry. The
Lord himself had told him how he would die when he was old.

And Paul warns against this view that Jesus might have returned
in those days at any moment. Paul says, to the Thessalonians, "[The
day of the Lord] will not come unless the apostasy comes
first and the man of lawlessness is revealed" (2 Thessalonians 2:3). So he
explicitly checks the spread of the view in his day that the Day of
the Lord could have already come. He says there are things that yet
have to happen before the day of the Lord can come.

The End of All Things Is at Hand: An Interpretation

My suggestion, then, is that Peter means something like this when
he says, "The end of all things is at hand":

"All around us there is intensifying persecution, as the Lord
said there would be. There are rumors of wars. The horizon is dark
for Israel, and the judgment on Jerusalem is near.

"Not only that, the gospel is spreading like wildfire as the
Spirit is poured out. Paul was able to plant churches in all the
major cites of Galatia in a matter of months. Now he has completed
the frontier mission work from Jerusalem all the way around to
northern Italy (Romans 15:19), and he plans to go to Spain. Hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of other bands of missionaries are forming and
going to the unreached.

"I don't know how big the world is. But if Pentecost is any
indication, and if the success of Paul
is any evidence, the world
could be evangelized in not many years by God's great power.
Brothers, the end is near—I'm not predicting when it will
happen. I mean, the things that the Lord said must happen before he
comes are taking place around us, and could be accomplished
quickly—even in your lifetime.

"So be sober for prayer, because the great danger facing us is
that we fall in love with this world and become spiritually dull
and the day come upon us like a thief and we be destroyed. O pray,
brothers, pray for the coming of the kingdom and for your strength
to endure and escape the trap of spiritual apathy. Pray that you
may be able to stand before the Son of Man."

And that's exactly the way I would talk about the coming of the
Lord today. It is just around the corner. The end is near indeed.
If anyone dallies with sin and the world, thinking, "I have lots of
time," he plays the fool. The Judge is at the door. And the time
remaining should be spent in earnest prayer that we not be made
drunk and hard by the cares and pleasures of this world.

A Word for Bethlehem: Warn Others in Love

This weighed on me all the way home yesterday from Brazil. I saw
all those people in the Sao Paulo airport and the Miami airport and
the Chicago airport and the Minneapolis airport—thousands and
thousands of people who don't believe that the end is near. Or that
there even is a Lord of history that is guiding it all to an
appointed end of judgment and salvation. I felt more ache for the
lost than I had for a long time. May the Lord stir us up to warn as
many people as we can—earnestly, lovingly, boldly.

That's a word from the Lord for us this morning. And there is
one more—at least. Maybe you will hear something from this
text that I don't even see.

A Word for Bethlehem: Love Covers over Sins

The other word for us comes from verses 8 and 9 about how to
live together in the end time stresses. "Above all, keep fervent in
your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
9 Be hospitable to one another without complaint [without
grumbling]." I saw a connection between verses 8 and 9 that I
hadn't seen before. And it made me think of where we are as a
church.

Verse 8 says that our love needs to be the kind that covers each
other's sins. In other words the focus is on the effect of love that
enables fellowship in spite of sins. Isn't that remarkable?

Then in verse 9 Peter says that we should be hospitable "without
complaint" or without grumbling. Grumbling about what? Maybe about
the time and effort it takes to fix a meal or straighten the house.
But don't you think he means grumbling about people. Love covers
over sins. Let hospitality be without grumbling. Love says, "I'm
just going to cover the things about which I could complain and
grumble."

The Lord is ministering to us here. He's choosing the texts as
we move through 1 Peter. If we want to, we all have ample reason to
complain and murmur, don't we? Some feel that there are past sins
in the way Dean and Leah were disciplined. Others feel there are
past sins in the way the elders were treated. Others feel neither
or both.

But God's amazing word to us this morning, I believe, is: love
covers sins, so that hospitality—real heart-felt
fellowship—can happen, not because we even agree on what the
sins are—that's the amazing thing in this text—not
because we finally decide what the real sins are, but because love
covers them.

Peter is saying that bona fide, authentic love and fellowship is
based, in part, on the covering of many sins. This is not sweeping
things under the rug. It's not endorsing keeping skeletons in the
closet. It's not renouncing church discipline. It's saying at least
this—probably more: When we've done all the
confrontation—when we've done all the argumentation and
exhortation—we cover it. Whatever side we are on, we cover it;
we give it up; we bury it as a cause of murmuring.

And then we turn together to God's future grace and take our
united cue for Master Planning from verse 11: we will so live "that
in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom
belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books.

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